INTRAFAMILIAL TRANSMISSION OF RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS .6. ASSOCIATION OF RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS WITH SEVERAL TYPES OF STATUS INCONSISTENCY

This study examines the relationship of 2 focal variables, rheumatoid arthritis and self-esteem, to several types of status inconsistency: that of the parents, of the respondents themselves, and of the respondents' marriage. The RA cases came both from a national interview sample and a university arthritis clinic. Ths subjects without RA were part of a cluster which included the spouse of the RA, the RA's sib and his (her) spouse, a cousin of the RA, and an unrelated individual. The data were collected in the course of three structured interviews: The major findings were as follows: 1. (1) Women with RA are more likely to come from families where the parents' marriage is status discrepant and the father is incongruent on education vs. occupation. 2. (2) Men with RA are somewhat less likely to come from such status inconsistent families, while the frequency of men with PU was unrelated to parental inconsistency. 3. (3) Both men and women from status inconsistent families report lower self-esteem when describing themselves as adults. 4. (4) Several forms of status incongruence of the respondents themselves bore no relationship to RA in women and to RA or PU in men. 5. (5) Status incongruent men whose education was 'inappropriately' high in relation to their occupation or to their perceived social class (PSC) were particularly low on self-esteem, while congruent men were generally the highest. 6. (6) Status incongruent women had the lowest self-esteem if their education exceeded their perceived social class, but highest self-esteem if their social class exceeded their education while congruent women were intermediate but closer to the latter group. 7. (7) Marriages where both spouses were healthy were less likely to be status discrepant than those marriages where one or the other of the spouses had RA. 8. (8) Wives in status discrepant marriages were more likely to have low self-esteem and more depression than wives where little or no discrepancy existed. The associations for the husbands were in the same direction but not significant. 9. (9) Status discrepant marriages were higher on marital hostility. 10. (10) Healthy husbands who were themselves status incongruent were more likely to have wives with RA than healthy husbands who were status congruent. Such wives had also lower self-esteem. © 1969.